The air tore into his lungs like swallowed glass.

He gagged, a violent, full-body convulsion that threw him forward into the damp dirt. A heavy, suffocating pressure sat at the base of his throat, roasting his windpipe from the inside. He grabbed at his neck. Thick, leathery skin met his touch. Hard edges. Scales.

No fingers. Three curved, bone-white claws dragged down the front of his throat, leaving pale scratches on orange hide.

He forced his eyes open. The forest floor rushed into focus, warped through a sickening, impossible lens. The shadows beneath the ferns pulsed with a dull, bruised purple. The decaying log a few feet away bled a sluggish, luminescent red. Heat. He was seeing the latent heat radiating from the rot.

He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head to clear the hallucinogenic nightmare. The smell hit him next. It drove a spike of pure nausea straight through his skull. The odor of wet earth was magnified a thousand times, layered with the blindingly sharp musk of fungal decay, the copper tang of crushed insects, and the acrid, overwhelming stench of sulfur burning right behind him.

A crystalline, emotionless chime cut through the rushing in his ears.

A pale blue rectangular interface bloomed in the dark space behind his eyelids. He opened his eyes. The glowing panel remained, hovering perfectly centered in his distorted, heat-warped vision.

[System Initialization Complete]
[Entity Registered: Ignis]
[Species: Charmander]
[Level: 1]
[HP: 15/15]
[Status: Disoriented]

The words hung in the humid air. *Ignis.* The name meant nothing to the life he remembered, the life of concrete pavements and silent train commutes. The interface flickered, completely indifferent to his heavy, rattling breaths.

A single, fat drop of water plummeted from the high canopy. It struck the tip of the appendage stretching out heavily behind him.

A sharp *hiss* bit the air.

The physical reaction bypassed every human thought in his head. Pure, unadulterated terror, raw, chemical, and ancient, exploded from the base of his spine and hijacked his nervous system. His vision narrowed to a pinprick. His heart hammered against his ribs in a frantic, avian rhythm. The flame at the end of his thick orange tail sputtered, shrinking from the moisture, and an agonizing jolt of cold shot directly into his internal organs.

If that fire died, his heart would stop beating. He knew this. The knowledge lived in the bone, buried beneath the fragile human memories currently screaming in confusion.

The canopy overhead groaned. The sky broke open.

A torrential wall of water crashed down through the leaves. The rain fell in solid, punishing sheets, instantly turning the forest floor into a chaotic sea of mud and splashing puddles.

He screamed. The sound tore out of his swollen throat as a grating, metallic screech. *Char!*

The system panel flashed violently in his peripheral vision.

[Warning: Environmental Hazard]
[Flame Integrity: Dropping]
[HP: 12/15]

He had to move. He threw his weight forward, trying to break into a sprint. His legs failed completely. The thick, squat thighs and awkward, bent-knee joints refused to carry his momentum. The massive weight of his heavy tail dragged his center of gravity backward. He slammed chest-first into the rising mud, a mouthful of foul, grit-filled water rushing past his lips.

The rain battered against his back, drumming a harsh, relentless rhythm against his scales. Another drop caught the dancing flame on his tail. The fire shrank backward, retreating toward the orange skin.

A wave of paralyzing cold seized his lungs. He could feel the connection slipping, the intrinsic tether keeping him tethered to the waking world fraying under the water.

He dug his three-toed claws directly into the slop. He abandoned the human concept of running. He dragged himself forward, belly scraping against the jagged roots and drowning leaves. His shoulder joints popped, screaming under the strain of pulling his disproportionate body weight.

He twisted his lower spine, desperately folding his heavy tail underneath him, trying to shield the flickering fire purely with the curvature of his torso. The awkward angle put agonizing pressure on his hips. The mud completely coated his legs, weighing him down like setting concrete.

[HP: 9/15]
[Warning: Core Temperature Critical]

Through the blinding grey sheets of rain and the warped, shivering heat-signatures of the forest, a shape materialized ahead. A massive pine tree had fallen decades ago, its trunk split and hollowed out by rot and time. A cavern of dry darkness waited beneath the thick, mossy overhang of its roots.

He lunged for it. His left claw caught on a slick, submerged stone. The bone snapped forcefully against the rock. He didn't stop. He couldn't stop. The draconic survival imperative locked his jaws together, forcing him to row through the muck with unbroken, singular ferocity.

He threw his upper body into the dark hollow of the deadwood. The overwhelming roar of the rain abruptly muffled.

He didn't pause to check the depth of the hole. He whipped his tail inside, dragging his hind legs over the threshold, and curled his entire body into a tight, trembling sphere. He pressed his back flush against the damp, rotting interior wall, wedging himself deep under the protective curvature of the wood.

He brought his tail tightly against his chest, tucking the flame beneath his chin.

He stared at the tiny, shivering fire. It was reduced to a pathetic, localized ember, clinging desperately to the scaly tip. The heat it cast was practically non-existent. The cold in his gut felt like swallowed ice, slowing the blood in his veins, dragging his eyelids down.

[HP: 5/15]
[Status: Hypothermia Imminent. Flame Integrity: Critical]

He breathed onto the flame. The motion was instinctual. He forced air down into the strange, burning gland in his throat, letting it heat up before exhaling a steady, warm current over his tail. The ember caught the warm air, glowing slightly brighter, feeding off the carbon and oxygen of his breath.

*Stay alive.* The thought belonged to the human. The physical action belonged to the lizard. The two merged in the suffocating darkness of the hollow tree.

He sat there, shivering violently, his small claws wrapped tight around his own tail. Beyond the edge of the hollow, the forest was tearing itself apart under the storm. Mudslides rushed past the entrance. The booming thunder rattled the very wood protecting him, syncing with the frantic, exhausting thud of his own heart.

He watched the embers hiss against a patch of damp wood near his foot. A tiny ribbon of gray smoke curled upward, stinging his hypersensitive nostrils.

He was trapped here. The suit of scales, the glowing blue panel hovering faintly in his vision, the suffocating reliance on a literal, physical flame to keep his organs functioning. He pulled the tail a fraction of an inch closer, burying his snout into the crook of his knees. The first night closed over him, heavy, cold, and stripped of everything he used to be.

A Charmander Story - Pokemon story — บท 38

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